While I talked about Bariba naming practices in an earlier post, I failed to mention an interesting subset: twins.
In Bariba culture, the naming of twins is automatic based on age and birth order. If both twins are girls, the first out of the womb will be named Assana, and the second will be Oussena. For boys, the names are Alassane and Ousseni. If the gender of the twins is mixed, the children are named accordingly: Assana and Ousseni if the girl comes first, or Alassane and Oussena if the boy is the first out. There are even special names for the next child who is born after a set of twins. If it is a girl, her name is Gado.
The south has the same practice of giving a specific name to the first child born after twins. However, the naming of twins themselves is different. In many families, boy-girl twins are given matching names. For instance, the twins in my Dangbo host family were named Damien and Damienne. In another host family, the twins were named Benjamin and Benjamina. Siblings of the twins will call their male twin brother Freaho and the girl twin will be called Seaho (forgive the spellings... I'm trying to write phonetically).
If you are twins, you had better hope you get along! Same gender twins, at least in the north, will be dressed alike from birth. Even Assana, a friend of mine in her 20s, says she still wears matching clothes with her sister whenever her sister is in town.
Now before I close this post about twins, let me share a story about my one experience with triplets in Sonsoro. A set of six-week-old triplets came in for vaccination, and I had my colleague counsel the mother after the babies came up as underweight on the scale. I was given one baby to hold, but before the mother left, I had to take a moment to hold each of the other two babies. My colleague explained that in local tradition, you can never hold just one of a set of twins or triplets. If you do so, it is thought that the baby who was not held will get jealous and then get sick. To avoid this jealousy and illness, if you hold one twin or triplet, you must hold the other(s).
In Bariba culture, the naming of twins is automatic based on age and birth order. If both twins are girls, the first out of the womb will be named Assana, and the second will be Oussena. For boys, the names are Alassane and Ousseni. If the gender of the twins is mixed, the children are named accordingly: Assana and Ousseni if the girl comes first, or Alassane and Oussena if the boy is the first out. There are even special names for the next child who is born after a set of twins. If it is a girl, her name is Gado.
The south has the same practice of giving a specific name to the first child born after twins. However, the naming of twins themselves is different. In many families, boy-girl twins are given matching names. For instance, the twins in my Dangbo host family were named Damien and Damienne. In another host family, the twins were named Benjamin and Benjamina. Siblings of the twins will call their male twin brother Freaho and the girl twin will be called Seaho (forgive the spellings... I'm trying to write phonetically).
If you are twins, you had better hope you get along! Same gender twins, at least in the north, will be dressed alike from birth. Even Assana, a friend of mine in her 20s, says she still wears matching clothes with her sister whenever her sister is in town.
Now before I close this post about twins, let me share a story about my one experience with triplets in Sonsoro. A set of six-week-old triplets came in for vaccination, and I had my colleague counsel the mother after the babies came up as underweight on the scale. I was given one baby to hold, but before the mother left, I had to take a moment to hold each of the other two babies. My colleague explained that in local tradition, you can never hold just one of a set of twins or triplets. If you do so, it is thought that the baby who was not held will get jealous and then get sick. To avoid this jealousy and illness, if you hold one twin or triplet, you must hold the other(s).
You're right. Twins need to get along in Benin. It used to be common in this country for twins to be dressed alike, even if if was a girl and a boy. As long as the mother decided what the children would wear it could go on for a long time. Maybe you remember mother and daughter dresses, too. Now children decide what they are going to wear from an early age whether they are twins or not. Oh, how our thinking has changed!
ReplyDeleteJean Ralley
My sisters and I had a number of matching outfits ourselves!
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